If you’re using a credit card that doesn’t offer rewards points, it’s time to make a change. For people who use their credit cards frequently, rewards points can add up fast and when you use your card at certain stores, you’ll receive up to five times the rewards points. You can use the points for travel vouchers, cash back, or merchandise.

If you don’t pay your balance in full at the end of the month, rewards points are worthless. In this case, find the card with the lowest interest rate and pay off your balance as quickly as possible. After that, don’t charge more than you can pay at the end of the month.

When you shop for a rewards card, don’t read about the exciting rewards offers until after you read about the interest rate, annual fees, and other terms. Read the smallest print first and save the exciting headlines for last.

Chase Freedom Visa

Chase Freedom Visa card is a new rewards card that lives up to the hype. You can read more about their current rewards by clicking here. If you have a damaged credit score, qualifying for the card may be challenging and if you do qualify, your interest rate may be unfavorable. Review the terms offered to you carefully before commiting to the card.

Chase Freedom Visa card offers $200 back after your first $500 in charges within the first three months, 5% cash back each quarter when you purchase in certain bonus categories, and up to 10% cash back when you shop through chase.com with selected merchants. All other purchases qualify for 1% cash back. The card continues to receive positive reviews from consumers and credit card sites.

What’s a Prime Rate?

All of the cards above have a variable interest rate that is tied to the prime rate. (Read about the prime rate here) For those with good credit, companies may add 12% to 20% to the current prime rate which represents the interest rate you will pay if you hold a balance. When the prime rate rises, the interest rate on the card rises as well. Variable rate cards are attractive when the prime rate is low but as it rises, they become unattractive. This is why you have to pay off your rewards card in full each month. (To find the current prime rate, click here.) Keep that in mind as you do your own research on these cards.

Remember

Always look at the terms of the card before reading about the rewards and don’t use high interest rewards cards if you’re going to hold a monthly balance. Credit card experts continually rank them as three of the best rewards cards on the market.

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19 Responses to “Rewards Credit Card Worth Checking Out”

The Chase Freedom site now states the bonus cash is $100 (not $200) in the first three months if you spend $500. I thought it was too good to last, but might still be a good deal for some who plan to use the 5% categories this year.

APR should never be a consideration with rewards cards. If you carry a balance rewards cards are not for you.

I would favor Chase Freedom over Discover More. Discover just raised its rewards cap this year, but the base rate is still .25% for non-category purchases. Also Chase Freedom will let you totally redeem your points down to 0 with the “pay yourself back” feature. I still have $0.68 on my Discover that will probably never go away without some strategic purchases and redemptions.

Wow all you suggest are affiliate linked cards. You’re missing some better cards like sallie Mae 2% cash back card or the chase sapphire preferred. You lost readership trust when you’re more concerned with your income than looking out for us.

The problem with the Sallie Mae card is that they don’t show anywhere how to redeem your “cash back”, which is why I won’t go for it. Chase Sapphie has only 2 points for travel and dining purchases and 1 point elsewhere. It’s really only good for the sign up bonus, IMHO. Plus it has a huge annual fee. I think Tim’s choices are pretty standard rewards card choices.

Sallie Mae 2% Cash Back card is for any type of purchase. Your best redemption tier is 25k points which is $12.5k of spend.

Tim’s choices are fine, but they leave money on the table because he is only linking to products that he will make a commission. If there is a better card out there, but he won’t make money from it… there’s a good chance he won’t include. That ends up being more self-serving than serving the readership. I make no money and have financial incentive to advise otherwise.

When I applied for the chase freedom the offer on the site i used (Creditkarma) was for two hundred dollars. i then saw some people were offered three hundred. i logged into my online account and asked if they could match the offer and they said yes and immediately i was credited the extra one hundred dollars.

so anyone who has opened an account within ninety days can ask for this and they may say yes or no. if they say no i would suggest asking again or maybe ringing them.

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